1. INTRODUCTION Dialogue epigrams are based on certain communication patterns that are formed by using certain elements of language. In this study, I discuss the linguistic features of these patterns and I provide a typology of dialogue epigrams as a framework for these analyses. I focus on the structure and language of the dialogue verse inscriptions, but I give non-inscribed1 parallels in order to discuss the development of the epigram genre. 1.1 Subject and structure of this study The core element of this study is the dialogue epigram typology that I created. The typology is based on the turn division and on aspects of this division. I have divided the material into three categories, and I discuss the typical features of each type. What kinds of turns form the dialogues? How are the turns marked? What kind of adjacency pairs do the turns form?2 How are these turns (a) linked together with and (b) separated from other pairs in multi-pair epigrams? These are some of the main points of this study. The typology also helps to combine verse inscriptions and non- inscribed epigrams, and to detect the development towards more narrative-based epigrams. This material offers valuable information on the ways to communicate certain facts on monuments, but also about the mutual influence of the monumental and the fictive texts. In order to make my analyses fully comprehensible, I proceed from the general to the specific. Firstly, I briefly discuss the history of epigrams and how dialogue epigrams are presented in this context (Section 1.2). Secondly, I give an overview of my material, dates, proveniences and composers, or what we know of them (Section 1.3), as well as a summary of relevant previous studies (Section 1.4). Finally, I explain the methodology which I used in this study (Section 1.5). 1 I will use the term non-inscribed epigram to denote the epigrams that were not written primarily for the monuments. 2 I will discuss the adjacency pairs and the turns, and explain the terms more closely in Section 1.5. Note that the word ’Chapter’ is used to refer to the chapter as a whole and ’Section’ is used to refer to the subsection within the chapter. 1 Before the detailed analysis of the typology and each type, I discuss terminology, speakers and speaker pairs, and also the possible performance and the reception of the epigrams in Chapter 2. What makes dialogue and what does the dialogue epigram mean? Who are the speakers in these epigrams? As the examples will show, there are fixed speaker roles that form a certain set of speaker pairs. Most of these epigrams are grave inscriptions, as is revealed in the speaker roles. On the basis of both structure and content, I suggest that these epigrams were possibly performed.3 I discuss the reading situation, the possible performance, the audience and what kind of evidence for these aspects my material offers. In Chapter 2, I also sum up the early stages of the dialogue form. In Chapters 3–5, I analyse in detail the language and the structure of the dialogue epigrams within the framework of my typology. Each of the types is discussed in its own chapter (type 1 in Chapter 3, type 2 in Chapter 4 and type 3 in Chapter 5). At the beginning of each of these chapters, I give a paradigm of the type in question and explain my criteria for the division. After this, I analyse the basic structure of the type and the linguistic details characteristic of each, giving examples and discussing the variants of each type, and also the similarities and differences between these three types. At the end of each of these three chapters, I briefly discuss some fictive parallels. Type-1 epigrams consist of one adjacency pair, and type-2 of several pairs, the amount of which varies. Type-3 epigrams are combinations of long units, for example whole stanzas as a turn each, and there are often three speakers in the epigram. In the analyses, features such as address, imperatives, interrogatives, particles and question structures are important. Some of the linguistic elements are repeated in every type: this is why features such as question structures are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3 and referred to briefly in the following chapters. In Chapter 4, I discuss the particles in detail. Although they occur in two other types as well, a certain kind of particle use is characteristic of type 2. In Chapter 5, I focus more on the shift from communication to narration than on linguistic details. 3 I thus agree with numerous other scholars: see Section 2.3. 2 When significant (and possible), I also discuss the wider context, such as possible prose sections or monologue epigrams on the same monument. Decoration, such as reliefs and statues, forms part of this wider context. My interest here is on the internal relationship of these parts (epigrams, prose and decoration): does the message change if we take the whole monument into account? In some cases, all of the parts are tightly combined – for example, the epigram can comment on a relief – whereas in some others, they do not have any internal references. The epigraphical roots of the epigram genre is a subject that has been discussed in recent studies,4 so I will concentrate only on the aspects that dialogue material has to offer. My focus is on the inscribed material, but the non-inscriptional epigrams cannot be excluded if we want to understand their development. I discuss examples that have connections with, contain references to, or are implicitly influenced by the structures and features familiar from the verse inscriptions. In the general conclusion (Chapter 6), I sum up this development. 1.2 Epigrams: verse inscriptions and non-inscribed epigrams European epigram tradition is influenced by the Latin and later epigram genre. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772–1834) epigram depicts one side of it: What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole; Its body brevity, and wit its soul. In ancient Greek monuments, however, there is variation. The Greek word behind our modern short poem, the epigram, is ἐπίγραμμα. It originally meant a short inscription on an object (carved on stone or written on, e.g., wax, parchment or papyrus; cf. ἐπιγραφή).5 They were short statements or informative lines, and, if written in verse, the earliest ones were dactylic hexameters.6 The earliest preserved 4 See Section 1.4. 5 cf., e.g., OCD3 ([1996] 2003), s.v. ‘epigram’; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2002, 389 and idem 2004, 283; Fain 2008, 9; and Baumbach, Petrovic and Petrovic 2010, 6–8. Also, Puelma 1997, 189–213. 6 See CEG 1.432, 740 BCE (date according to Coldstream: given by Hansen in CEG), the Dipylon oenochoe; CEG 1.454 (ca 750–700 BCE, dated by Hansen), the Pithecusae scyphos; the scyphos of 3 examples are on vessels that were used for example during symposia.7 During the Archaic period, short verse inscriptions on stone were common, mostly on grave markers and on dedicatory monuments. The witty aspect that is typical of later Greek epigrams (and later European epigrams) was still absent. This is also clear in my material, for the earliest preserved dialogue epigram8 is a rather informative dactylic fragment. Indeed, most of the verse inscriptions are informative and occasionally formulaic, even after the evolution of the Hellenistic (literary) epigram. On the other hand, some indications of the influence of literary epigrams do occur in Hellenistic and Roman period verse inscriptions. However, it is rather irrelevant whether the inscribed epigram influenced the literary epigram, or vice versa; they are both part of the same tradition and have concurrent developments and mutual influence. The reason for producing inscriptions was e.g. to reveal the following information: the owner of the object or the monument in question; who made or dedicated the monument, and to which god; or who was in the grave.9 The word epigramma was used in this sense by Euripides (Troad. 1191), Herodotus (5.59, 7.228) and Thucydides (6.54), and this usage prevailed until the Hellenistic period.10 An epigram in elegiac distich would also be referred to by the word ἐλεγεῖον .11 By ca 500 BCE, the elegiac couplet had become the generic metre of verse inscriptions. Reasons for its dominance have been sought in the possibilities offered by the metre itself, 12 but Fain points out that its success came first and the sophisticated way of using its possibilities only later.13 Then again, other metres aside from the elegiacs were still used, and, as regards the dialogue material, it is Hakesandros (ca 720 BCE), published in Besios, Tziphopoulos and Kotsonas 2012; Tataie’s small vase, 675–650 BCE. See also Wecowski 2014, 127-134. 7 Vases and drinking vessels, however, were mostly decorated with prose, although with words from songs or poetic expressions, thus functioning as ‘aides-mémoire to oral sympotic performances, which would often be in verse, whether extemporised compositions or recitals or adaptions of earlier lyric or elegiac poetry’: see Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 284. 8 GVI 1831, discussed in Section 2.2 (no. 1), where I also discuss whether or not we can use this epigram as proof for early dialogue epigrams. 9 To name a few. For further, see OCD3 ([1996] 2003), s.v. ‘epigram, Greek’. 10 On the use of the terms, see, e.g., Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 283 and Bruss 2005, 4–9. 11 Gentili 1968, 39. cf. Gentili also for, e.g., θρῆνος and further terminology.